Saturday, May 30, 2015

For Thy love is better than wine, In those days wine was the highest of the luxuries this earth offered. Paul wrote. "and be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess: but filled with the Holy Spirit." (Eph. 5:18).

THE LOVE OF GOD - Traditional Hymns

Oh, to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that (fill with your name) might experience that excitement, that belonging to Christ and fellowship with Him! Being dedicated Christians, this is what we need.

We need to come to that attitude of which Peter wrote:"whom having not seen, ye love; in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8).

Habakkuk stated it like this: although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine: the labor of the olive shall fail,.... Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. 3:17-18).

Wine gives a temporary lift, but it will let you down. Allow the Spirit of God to come into your life. He will shed abroad in your heart the love of God. That is one reason we need the Holy Spirit.

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; (Romans 3:25)

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There Is A Fountain (A Quiet Place Instrumental Hymns)

There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in His day;

And there have I, though vile as he,

Washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood

Shall never lose its pow’r,

Till all the ransomed church of God

Are safe, to sin no more.

E’er since by faith I saw the stream

Thy flowing wounds supply,

Redeeming love has been my theme,

And shall be till I die.

When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue

Lies silent in the grave,

Then in a nobler, sweeter song,

I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

William Cowper is one of God's gracious gifts to those suffering from depression. Like the Psalmist who cried, "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" (Psalm 42:5), Cowper shows us that our emotional struggles often give us heightened sensitivity to the heart of God and to the need of others.

Cowper (pronounced Cooper), born in 1731, was the forth child a British clergyman and his wife. William's three siblings died, then his mother died while giving birth to the fifth child. William was six when he lost his mother, and it was a blow from which he never recovered. Years later, when someone sent him a picture of her, he wrote:

My mother? When I learn'd that thou wast dead,

Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?

Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,

Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?...

I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day,

I saw the hearse that nor thee slow away,

And, turning from my nurs'ry window, drew

A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!

William, emotionally frail, was sent to a boarding school where for two years he was terrorized by a bully which further shattered his nerves. From ages 10 to 18, he had a better experience at Westminster School, developing a love for literature and poetry. His father wanted him to be an attorney, but, preparing for his bar exam, he experienced runaway anxiety. Concluding himself dammed, he threw away his Bible and attempted suicide.

Friends recommend an asylum run by Dr. Nathaniel Cotton, a lover of poetry and a committed Christian. Under Dr. Cotton's care, William recovered. In the asylum in 1764, he found the Lord while reading Romans 3:25: His life was still to hold many dark days of intense depression, but at least he now had a spiritual foundation. As he later put it: there is a fountain....